A New Face on TV

Al Arabiya's Washington bureau chief with U.S. President Barack Hussein Obama during his first presdiential interview
(Al Arabiya)

This week, President Obama gave his first formal interview as commander in chief to Al Arabiya's Washington bureau chief, Hisham Melham, and the Muslim world watched. Melham says the massive outpouring of reaction to the interview surprised even him.

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Wow. What a horrible interview by Brooke. I can't believe that she did not once mention the elephant in the room - Israel.

Mr. Melham attempted to make a distinction between Al Qaeda as opposed to Hamas and Hezbollah, as if the latter two were any more legitimate than the first.

Melham talked about the "last eight years, never mind the last 60 years" when speaking of the Arab world's regard for the United States. So I guess in his mind, the Bush administration's failed diplomatic and war policy is the equivalent to the United States' support of the only truly democratic country in that region.

(And I am confident that he has all but forgotten our rescue of Kuwait and the rest of the Arab World in 1991)

If the United States is no longer "held in esteem" by Hamas, Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations and their supporters, we should wear that as a badge of pride.

Mr./Ms. Tett apparently wasn't listening for Bob's rant on the Bush administration two weeks ago or his and Brooke's questioning of administration policies or decisions over the last several years. If Bob is coming off as snide at President Obama already, perhaps he has devised an answer for those critics who supposed the next four or eight years would result in a free pass for this supposedly "liberal Democrat" on OTM.

Meanwhile, I couldn't think of a better reporter through which to reach out to the moderate, reasoning Muslim world than Mr. Melman. These are a people who have given world culture and science great gifts, so moderate and reasoning are quite appropriate adjectives to apply to the bulk of the people who share this honored faith and it is at our peril that we forget this.

I found the interview of the interviewer quite flawed. It smacked of an anti-President Obama bias. I found the Arab interviewer's comments and responses more respectful of an American president than the American interviewer. Where was this needle-nosed questioning ("Do you find it hard to be objective about Obama?") during the last eight years? Where was the "concern" re: finding it hard for other reporters to question President Bush? Disgusting.